http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001803.html
GQ writer Julia Ioffe was one of several prominent left-wing journalists to blame Donald Trump and/or Benjamin Netanyahu for the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre within minutes of it happening on Saturday.
In a tweet dismissed by others as “repulsive,” Ioffe appeared to claimed that the fault for the actions of the neo-Nazi in Pittsburgh lay with Jews (a majority) who supported the move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
BLAMING TRUMP
[Note by Tom Gross]
Predictably, many journalists rushed to blame Donald Trump for the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue.
“Trump didn’t pull the trigger on Jews in Pittsburgh, but he certainly prepped the shooter,” ran the Haaretz headline of a piece by the former editor of the American magazine Foreign Policy.
Similar accusations were made in publications including The Atlantic, The Forward, The New Republic and The Washington Post – and they were made before the bodies of the murdered Jews, which included a 97-year-old woman, had even been removed from the floor of the synagogue where they were executed.
I attach two pieces below from writers that beg to differ (both are subscribers to this list).
Brendan O’Neill, the editor in chief of Spiked, writes:
Bowers’ own social-media output suggests he was more influenced by the shared left / right / Islamist conspiracy theory about Jewish power than he was by Trump’s divisive commentary. He was critical of Trump, on the basis that the president was granting Jews too much influence and presence in the US. This, worryingly, is now a mainstream view. You see it in Guardian cartoons showing Israeli leaders puppeteering Western politicians. You hear it in leftish panic about an all-powerful Israel Lobby. You see it in Press TV headlines about the US being ‘completely under the thumb’ of Zionists. Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the UK Labour Party, worked for Press TV. For years.
Jonathan S. Tobin, the editor on chief of the Jewish News Syndicate writes:
For some, the only real culprit here is US President Donald Trump. … but Bowers was a critic of Trump, specifically because of his sympathy with Jews, the presence of many Jews in key administration posts and his support for Israel, which exceeds that of all of his recent predecessors. He viewed Trump as an ally of Jews – not someone who had encouraged him to attack them…